In Praise of Don Vandergriff for the “Next Yoda” at ONA

January 17th, 2015 by zen

There are many strategic and operational issues that the U.S. military and NatSec community would prefer to ignore because they do not play to our areas of strength where the United States enjoys overwhelming dominance relative to the rest of the world. Well, these problem areas will only grow in scope and importance because they are the points where our adversaries see hope of gaining leverage and comparative advantage over us. I am almost tempted to say “Duh” here because enemies hitting your weak points instead of running headlong into our strong points and being killed en mass is strategy 101, but strategy is less popular in some quarters these days than it should be. Don Vandergriff is the sort of man to highlight deficiencies so they can be remediated and, eventually, become new strengths.

Don Vandergriff….strongest recommendation.

Page 2 of 2 | Previous page

Posted in 2015, America, defense, expertise, fabius maximus, intellectuals, James Fallows, military, military professionalism, military reform, military training & education, national security, strategist, strategy, vandergriff | 4 comments

Previous post:
Next post:

  1. Charles Cameron:

    January 17th, 2015 at 8:00 am

    You’re pretty quick off the Mark, Zen! I’d just finished reading Fallows in the Atlantic and a couple of the pieces he linked to including Vandegriff’s truly impressive 2005 CV, and turned to ZP and found you’d already posted here.
    .
    My best wishes to Vandergriff, whom I undoubtedly first heard of on ZP in a piece from 2008 that also mentioned me. Yoda I hope he becomes.
    .
    About Andrew Marshall. I associate that name with wargaming, and sure enough I’ve found a Stanford paper — funnily enough, in a volume titled Collection, Laboratory, Theater: Scenes of Knowledge in the 17th Century, but also available online, Theaters of War: the Military-Entertainment Complex — that mentions Marshall and his interactions with James Dunnigan.
    .
    I’d be very interested if anyone knows of a more detailed account of Marshall and the history of war games, or for that matter, any wargame of particular note.

  2. zen:

    January 18th, 2015 at 5:37 am

    Thanks, Charles!
    .
    Andrew Marshall was at RAND in its golden age which may be the wargaming connection. Most of what he has written is classified and as a professional eminence grise, he was publicity-shy. Tom Barnett did a few seminars or projects with Marshall and reported to me that Marshall was pretty reticent with his comments, even in private workshops.
    .
    Here’s a recent post that has some good Marshall links. Adam Elkus took a grad class on Net Assessment methodology with one of Marshall’s proteges and can probably be more helpful.
    .
    http://thediplomat.com/2015/01/is-the-pentagons-andrew-marshall-the-leo-strauss-of-military-analysis/

  3. Charles Cameron:

    January 19th, 2015 at 9:29 pm

    John Robb on LinkedIn:

    Excellent! Don Vandergriff has his hat in the ring to replace Andrew Marshall at the Pentagon’s Office of Net Assessment (ONA). He’s got my support. Anyone know who is pulling the trigger on this appointment? Also, who else is in the running?

    Wish I could figure out how to link to a LinkedIn post like this…

  4. Anthony Alfidi:

    February 16th, 2015 at 1:08 am

    Don Vandergriff would be an excellent choice to succeed Andrew Marshall. His books on leadership should be required Army War College reading in a just world.